90: Tangent . . . (continued)

Hitting Back



 "WORKING THE AREA"

"TO round up the casualties in the church I sent Sgt. Colley and his squad up through the cellar door and out to reach the church about 75 to 100 yards away. They had just gotten about five or ten yards from our own door when a machine-gun located across the street on the opposite corner opened up on them firing over their heads. They bounced back into the cellar in nothing flat. From then on in the dark, all hell broke loose. Machine-guns, grenades, burp guns, rifles were firing all over town--and they seemed to be in the same room--they were that close. A clocking type of rapid fire weapon was firing across the street. The Kraut moved into the first and second floors of our own building and set up a temporary CP and machine-gun here.

We could hear them talking in German outside our windows and our own boys tracking them down--also several of our own boys grunt and sigh as they were hit right outside our building . . . two mortar men across the street . . . the Kraut yelling commands--some of them seemed to be drunk . . . My main worry was that they would just look in and see the group and toss in some hand grenades. God was with us that night, though. They fought all around us and over us, but, outside from keeping us away from our casualties in the church, didn't hinder us . . . At one point I nearly fell asleep on the cold floor under the kitchen table and got multiple leg cramps. Everybody but the Kraut owner and myself finally got to sleep . . . The fighting raged for about two or three hours, around us most o the time.



ACTION NEAR ORENHOFEN

"Herb Bottjer told me later that there were snipers and a machine-gun in our building but his company knew we were in the basement. (Bark and St. Louis came back with the plasma and the whiskey during the beginning of the counter-attack. They went through a door where McKenna (Pfc. Jack McKenna, 11121950) of I Company had been killed four or five minutes before, and got back to us O.K. . . . During the height of the attack, German tanks were reported approaching the town. Lt. C. P. Smith of Vermont volunteered to go out and investigate! He went out alone at about 8 PM or so, and wasn't found until the next day, still alive but seriously wounded. A wonderful lad with a swell future and apparently a grand family. There had been two tanks, one of which was apparently abandoned by its crew on the outskirts of town. The firing went further away as the counter-attack was repelled. Then followed quiet.
"The quiet was worse in some ways than the firing. We didn't know who had been victorious although we naturally expected the best. We didn't know until the next morning when some GIs came in and we started to work . . . many were treated that first day . . . Smith came in late that day . . . a miracle he had lived that long, but he . . . died in the field hospital later . . . a number of officers and non-coms, most of them key men were injured and treated that bloody day."

The telling of the story as it is quoted above takes a thousand times longer than did the actual making of it. Some of the moments in that first day and night in Orenhofen must have appeared as eternity's. Others must have sped by almost faster than thought itself could go. The town was officially considered as captured and in our hands by 1000 on March 4th. To accept this just at face value, however, is to be blind to the true facts. "During the afternoon the battalion repulsed two counter- attacks of infantry and tanks firing direct fire at 1000 yards, and held the town during the night against infiltrating patrols. During 5 and 6 March repeated artillery and rocket attacks were made on the town." Prosaic and commonplace as the wordage is, this report is worth repeating. It at least gives a hint of how bitter, how tenacious the action was. Also, glowing mention must be made of M Company and its brilliant work with mortars and machine-guns--but more particularly the 81mms in covering the enemy terrain in such a way that a large portion of the success in repulsing the repeated counter-attacks belongs to them. The words of their own eye witnesses tell the story: "We entered buildings on the edge of town and, although we had to embrace the floors quite often and watch out for flying glass, none of the Jerries got any cigars for a hit. There were several wounded men and officers from rifle companies in the cellars waiting to be evacuated. Shortly after this we moved into and past the center of the town. Jerry was pretty good but not good enough, and we knew it. Our machine-guns set up a capable defense and we were very lucky that we did, because we no sooner set up when we received a counter-attack. During this counter-attack our mortars reached their peak. Excellent manipulation put Cpl. Dennan's first burst into a Jerry nest. Our mortars worked the area over so well that few Kraut in that area survived the shelling." These positions must have meant a great deal to the enemy--for this was not their usual system of "strategic retrograde" once a position had been lost. Orenhofen--well, they must have hated like the devil losing it!

What Price Victory?

THE mirror of the battalion surgeon's diary gives us the best record of all. "The worst day we have had so far. The town of Orenhofen was hardly touched when we entered it--and, when we left, it was a shambles. For three days the Germans . . . threw continuous Nebelwerfer (screaming meemies) in--they broke the CP's windows--hit the church--had everybody on edge and ducking every time they heard a whistle. Had most everybody afraid to go outside to the latrine. Many a one hurried back in the middle of a BM because of them. And then there was our saddest loss of all to my way of thinking. Herb Bottjer. Herb had sensed our position as soon as we took the town and had said we'd be lucky to hold it. He then set up defensive and protective measures and, all in all, did a wonderful job in the tough spots. Two days later things were quiet except for the screaming meemies. I went up to visit Herb after sick call was over--about 11 a.m. or so. After talking and joking for a while and speaking about our first reunion in New York, the places we'd visit, etc., I asked Herb to drop in for a drink of USA Bourbon. He said he'd be up in a little while and I took off. I sure wish he had come. On my way down the street the meemies started arriving again and I ducked once or twice into nearby buildings. As soon as I arrived in the aid station, "Frenchy," the K Company runner, came tearing in after me telling me that Capt. Bottjer had been hit. I told Bark to run a squad up right away but just as they were going another runner came down and told me they thought the Captain (Capt. Herbert E. Bottjer, 0452195) was dead. I ran up the street myself and found Herb sitting outside . . . underneath a wooden shed . . . He was pallid, gray and lifeless. It was hard to believe that he was so dead when three minutes before he had been so alive, laughing and full of plans for the future. That was the most profound shock I have had thus far--and for the rest of the day I wasn't myself." (Three days after the death of Captain Bottjer he was replaced by Captain, then Lieutenant, Abernethy who had returned voluntarily to the 3rd battalion of the 304th. He had left the 76th back at Camp McCoy, shipping out for overseas duty and had already been in Europe for several months at the time of the Division's arrival in this theater. Hearing that his old outfit was in combat he received--by request--an assignment to the Division and later to the same company with which he had been for two and one half years back in the States!)
The final comment of this part of the Captain's diary sums up that entire three days in a nutshell. "Until we left that town I was as jittery as could be and so was most everybody else. Lt. McDonald (2nd Lt. John M. McDonald, 0553224), Lt. C.P. Smith (1st Lt. C. P.Smith, III, 01323361), and Captain Bottjer were lost there. Lt. McDonald, a nice quiet fellow and a good officer, was killed during the counter-attack. In Orenhofen we were out on a thumb, with enemy on our right flank, left flank and in front of us. They shelled us for three days and, when we left, what had been a good looked something like Bastogne and other badly chewed-up ones."
What has been written just above is a perfect example of the historian's difficulties in preserving and maintaining true and just perspective. His attitude is supposed to be remote, detached and calm and collected. How is it humanly possible to be so when it is inevitable to remember that less than a bare six months ago the names which are scattered through these accounts were not just names but people to whom one talked, beside whom one had eaten and slept and fought? Orenhofen and all that it meant, therefore, may have slightly exceeded its proper proportions in this account. It was, after all, only a part of the overall picture. While that bloody incident was taking place, other episodes were running their own gamut in other sections of the same phase, during the same minutes and the same hours of the same days and nights.

Twice-Taken Towns

HOSTEN was only a trifle more than two kilometers to the west of Orenhofen. With only the slightest of change in range the same batteries of Nebelwerfers which were pouring into the one could torment the other as well. This was no less than the absolute truth. Orenhofen was tenacious and bitter. Hosten and Auw were perhaps a little less tenacious but not by the farthest stretch of the imagination could they be called any less bitter. The stories from 1st and 2nd battalions and from the companies bear ample testimony to this, and they bear out another fact as well--that the lines of battalions and companies kept crossing and recrossing. As witness a simple little extract from Lt. Singleton's diary (an artillery observer with the 2nd battalion): "Moved down hill with the company and boarded assault boats to cross the river. About half way across Jerry machine-guns opened up on our boats and I could hear the bullets whistling over my head. Got across safely and found out that the company was divided. Joined with a platoon under Lt. Ryder and began the long and tiresome trek up the steep and heavily wooded hill ahead of us. Climbed for about two hours, sometimes having to pull ourselves up by holding on to small trees, because of the steepness of the slope. Finally made the climb. This was about midnight. (Later found out that all the companies of the battalion had infiltrated through an entire enemy company. This company was later encountered by the 3rd Bn. and wiped out.)"
Another evidence of the marked difference in the battle around Orenhofen and the sector through which the 2nd battalion moved was the rapidity of movement and the amount of space covered in comparable amounts of time. Blue battalion was at Orenhofen on March 4th, 5th and 6th. It was only on the 7th of March that they moved out and took up positions for the next day's attacks on Arenrath and Niersbach. This was in no way any indication of the superiority of one battalion over another. It meant purely that the enemy had set his heart on the stopping or retarding of the attack at one certain point--and the 3rd battalion was IT.

In the meanwhile 2nd was sweeping along (with the help of the attached 1st battalion elements) and having almost as tough a fight of it on their hands. Thus, the White historian records. "Baker Company secured the bridge-head for the crossing and later collaborated with Able Company in the holding of Auw. The remainder of Baker Company and the whole of Charlie Company fought their way into Hosten. Dog Company ran into extremely heavy machine-gun and sniper fire in Auw and was pinned down for a whole day. The 81 mm mortar platoon succeeded in escaping and they later set up their guns and fired on the opposition."

COMMO PATROL

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